Keeping the internet safe for my daughters

The digital world can be a confusing and insufficiently regulated space, but it is not going away

- Jill Lim

How can I keep my child safe in cyberspace? That's a worry parents didn't have 15 or even 10 years ago, but it is an issue today.

There are good things about devices and social media - connections made, friendships maintained, schoolwork discussed, businesses promoted. But there are also clear dangers.

This impression was reinforced when I quizzed my daughter, 15, recently about her social media and device use. She has had her own smartphone since the end of Primary 5.

To share one example, her use of the messaging app Telegram, she said - and I'm including her very patient explanations to a non-Telegram-using dinosaur:

"Telegram is mostly used by people who create channels - that's like a broadcast group that you can control the content of. They're good if you keep your channel private so random people cannot join. I mostly update my channel and read my friends' channels and see the updates about their lives. It's one of my most used social media apps.

"Some Telegram channels are good. For example, they sell sonny angels - "

"What the..." "which are like naked baby charms for phone cases - or pre-worn clothes and stuff. But some channels are really bad.

There are channels to sell vapes, based in Singapore. They sell to students and deliver to the house or let them pick it up. And that's how a lot of teenagers get vapes.

"In South Korea, there are channels where deepfake technology is used to put random girls' faces on porn videos.